


Embrace Your Purpose: What the Seamstress' Assistant Saw

by helygen2017



Series: Embrace Your Purpose [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, Gen, Modern Girl in Thedas, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Qun, Scars, не копировать не уточнив у автора
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-07 02:22:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17951837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helygen2017/pseuds/helygen2017
Summary: Beckilymentioned that it would be interesting to see the perspective of the elven assistants during the scene fromChapter 42of the main story (Embrace Your Purpose) involving the disasterous meeting of the seamstress charged with preparing the Inquisition for their appearance at the Winter Ball. Your wish is my command, falon.





	Embrace Your Purpose: What the Seamstress' Assistant Saw

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beckily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beckily/gifts).



Ghenne stood quietly to the side of the mage’s solar, next to her younger sister, Sesa, Madame Matine Paonne’s other elven assistant. She was secretly excited to see the Herald of Andraste for herself; even the elves in the alienage told stories passed along from friends of friends of neighbours of cousins about the Herald and her bravery. How she stood her ground against Corypheus and his dragon at Haven. How she had survived to lead her people to Skyhold. How she pledged to change the world for everyone.

They stood waiting for the Inquisitor to arrive while the four women sat chatting and eating little cakes, finger sandwiches, and cups of hot tea. She knew that her mistress would be bitching incessantly about the quality of the food later despite how she fawned over it now; Skyhold might have been a glorious place in its day, but it was decidedly threadbare around the edges and the Inquisition was obviously a little light in its coffers. However, the Inquisition had gained highly coveted invitations to the Empress’ Winter Ball and the potential clientele after dressing the Inquisition would offset their current discomfort and inconvenience of travelling to such a remote heap of rock. Not that she, nor Sesa, would see a single silver piece of an increase in their wages despite being the ones that did all the labour including the sewing for Madame Paonne.

Her stomach grumbled earning her a sharp glare from her employer before she returned to her conversation. She could only hope that the Inquisitor didn’t end up being one of those indecisive, vapid shems like most of Paonne’s clients and they’d get to pack up early enough to catch some dinner in the servants’ quarters before it was cold. Or gone entirely.

Her sharp ears picked up the irregular steps of someone approaching the solar, the other women only reacted when the new arrival stepped out of the doorway and continued up the final three stairs.

She studied the new arrival. They had to be a clerk or messenger judging from the clothing; the jacket while of decent quality was scuffed up and dusty, leather breeches below showed signs of wear and it looked like the woman had leaned against an anvil or something within a smithy based on the sharp line of soot across the side of one leg. The knee-high boots looked to be of decent quality and repair but not new by any means. The irregular stride was unexpected; worn leather or a torn sole would make for the boot to be loose and flap when walking, but that wasn’t the case here. The woman’s hands were in thin leather gloves, not unusual considering the temperature. The blue scarf around her neck was of very high quality and looked to be Tevinter by design; that was unusual.

Her ears flicked in surprise as all four of the women stood up and the elegantly dressed mage introduced her employer to the new arrival. This was the Inquisitor, the famed Herald of Andraste?

She felt vaguely disappointed. The woman seemed quite plain; mid-brown hair pulled back into a hasty braid that looked to be unravelling, cheeks flushed from the wind, of middling height. She thought that she could have walked past her on the way in and never have given her a second look. Up close, she noticed the woman had dark smudges under her green eyes, freckles scattered across the cheekbones that had hollows under them that she recognized from seeing too many elves from the alienage going hungry more often than they cared to. More shocking were the scars that surrounded her mouth; the rumours must have been true about her being a mage imprisoned by the Qun. A long thin scar ran down her forehead over her left eye and finished in the cheek below, but her eyes kept being drawn back to the scars around the Inquisitor’s mouth. She shuddered despite herself; how painful must that have been to have someone pull a needle and thick thread back and forth through the tender flesh of one’s lips?

Ghenne and Sesa gathered the measuring tapes, laid out a fresh piece of parchment ready for the measurements, and a stoppered bottle of ink with a sharpened quill set to the side. They rolled their eyes at their employer’s fussing to get the Inquisitor to disrobe. When the Inquisitor stepped out, she gave her sister a sharp jab with her elbow to silence the little titter of laughter when they spotted the undyed wool socks slouching around the woman’s ankles. She pressed her lips together at the sight of neatly wrapped bandages, like elven foot wraps the Dalish preferred, peeking out above the socks. Perhaps there was something wrong with the Inquisitor’s feet to explain the odd way she moved.

“Come, come now, Inquisitor,” the seamstress hovered around the Inquisitor herding her towards the little dais and drawing the robe from her shoulders, “we are all ladies here, nothing to be ashamed about.”

She jerked her head up when she heard Madame Paonne gasp followed by the woman’s protest about the Inquisitor’s back.

As she stood there mortified by her employer’s lack of tact, she watched the face of the Inquisitor shift; the soft, unassuming woman changed becoming cold and austere, like carved marble. The magic in her left hand crackled and sparked, giving off green light that reflected off every polished surface. Something powerful, fiery, flickered behind the human’s eyes as her gaze passed over herself and Sesa, and stopped somewhere beyond the little solar, and for the instant those eyes were upon her, she felt utterly terrified and laid bare. This was the Herald of Andraste, the mighty Inquisitor, that stood and faced down the evil magister and its dragon, and her employer had drawn her ire.

Sesa handed her a tape measure with a shaking hand. She looked at her sister in surprise, they had originally negotiated that Sesa would help Madame Paonne with the Inquisitor, but her sister quickly turned away to the parchment to await the measurements. She worked silently, keeping her eyes down, but it didn’t stop her from seeing all the scars and marks that crossed the Inquisitor’s body; long scars over the right hip that looked like claw marks, puncture wounds, thin slashes, bands of scarring around her wrists, and of course the scars on her face.

She clamped her mouth shut as she moved around behind, not knowing what to expect but knowing from Paonne’s reaction that there was _something_ shocking on the Inquisitor’s back. She raised her eyes and felt her eyes burn with tears as she mapped the scars—the whip tracks—across the Inquisitor’s back. The whip marks were bad enough, creating a ragged diamond pattern that spanned from her shoulders to the tops of her buttocks, but the brilliant red and black that coloured them was truly horrifying. She shuddered to think how the colour was introduced. She wondered if the marks still caused the Inquisitor pain. She quickly wiped her sleeve across her eyes and returned to her sister’s side; all measurements having been made.

The whole meeting with the Inquisitor didn’t improve after that. While the ladies managed to get the Herald to remove her socks, even she could see from the shape of the wrappings underneath that the woman’s feet were deformed. She rolled her eyes at their insistence that the Inquisitor could wear some of the fancier shoes they offered her. Anyone with eyes could see that shoes that put her weight onto the ball of her foot was going to cause an immense amount of pain and instability due to the missing toes. Finally, ungraciously, Madame Paonne threw her hands up in defeat and declared that they’d have to make-due with a flat or a boot. She breathed a sigh of relief; the disastrous appointment was finally over.

She was busy helping Sesa pack up their measuring tools, notes, and fabric swatches. Their employer made one more offer to the Inquisitor regarding their wardrobe, but it was the sharp gasp that made Ghenne whip her head up. The Inquisitor stood frozen with the mask that Paonne had tied on for her. She could see that it wasn’t the best fit; the mask sat very well from hairline to cheekbone, but the bridge of the nose and eye holes were not in the right position and ended up obscuring the Inquisitor's line of sight. The Inquisitor shot her hand out, reaching for some invisible object and for a moment, Ghenne forgot herself and took a step forward to help when none of the others did. For a heartbeat, she could see the abject terror in the eyes of the Inquisitor before the woman reached up to the mask and clawed it from her face, snapping the ribbons and oblivious to the hair she pulled out. She flung the mask shattering it on the floor and stumbled away to the stairs.

Ghenne and her sister turned quickly back to their work while the other women spoke calmly and reassured their employer that “all would be well”, “the Inquisitor was temperamental”, and other platitudes. She blinked her eyes rapidly and rubbed absently at the sudden ache in her chest; that wasn’t temperamental, that was terror. The Herald of Andraste, the mighty Inquisitor, that was standing for all of them against the dark, was a woman fractured and scarred on the inside, as much as she was on the outside. She was still in awe of the woman, but now it was mixed with an overwhelming sense of sorrow for her as well.


End file.
